Page 107 - THE ISLAND OF DR MOREAU

The Island of Doctor Moreau

XIV. DOCTOR MOREAU EXPLAINS.

‘AND now, Prendick, I will explain,’ said Doctor
Moreau, so soon as we had eaten and drunk. ‘I must
confess that you are the most dictatorial guest I ever
entertained. I warn you that this is the last I shall do to
oblige you. The next thing you threaten to commit
suicide about, I shan’t do,— even at some personal
inconvenience.’
He sat in my deck chair, a cigar half consumed in his
white, dexterous-looking fingers. The light of the
swinging lamp fell on his white hair; he stared through the
little window out at the starlight. I sat as far away from
him as possible, the table between us and the revolvers to
hand. Montgomery was not present. I did not care to be
with the two of them in such a little room.
‘You admit that the vivisected human being, as you
called it, is, after all, only the puma?’ said Moreau. He had
made me visit that horror in the inner room, to assure
myself of its inhumanity.
‘It is the puma,’ I said, ‘still alive, but so cut and
mutilated as I pray I may never see living flesh again. Of
all vile—‘

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